The Metrodome was every bit the house of horrors that we feared it would be. At least the Tigers were in position to win that series, it’s just that the Tigers bullpen decided to take a few minutes to be the Tigers bullpen. D-Train made his less-than-triumphant return, but it wasn’t as awful as we feared it would be. The Train threw strikes, got hit a good bit, didn’t make it five, but will live to fight another day. So, just as quickly as the Tigers dispatched the Indians via a road sweep, they were, in turn, swept by the Twins. And then the Tigers went home…

And proceeded to break out the beating sticks and teed off on Athletics pitching. Sweep – Get Swept – Sweep again. It’s a recipe for .500, and we’ve gotta do better than that folks. Thankfully, the rest of the AL Central is playing meh-level ball as well and our heroes find themselves in first place on this glorious Monday off. Best of all – The Big Tilde is heating up. TBT went 8/25 last week with 5 RBI and got his average back up to .256.

Unfortunately, our titular hero is going to be taking some time off this week to be with the Lady Tilde while she has surgery. Best wishes to the Ordonez family this week.

The Rangers are in town starting tomorrow night – D-Train makes his home debut, y’all!

The man you see here to the right is Mr. Paul Schrieber. Family man. Lover. Sinner. Doer of things he should have done a long time ago. And a one-time transgressor of Notinaslump Ordoñez.

After calling out Tilde on strikes in the seventh inning, Mr. Schrieber forgot the cardinal rule: Touch Tilde Unlesseth Commanded To Touch. (For those interested, this is dogma derived from the Church Of Sexing Mutombo.) This touching, in turn, caused Jim Leyland to scream the tar out of his lungs, resulting in an ejection.

Well, before the Tilde Prophets could write letters excommunicating him from our upcoming picnic, Schrieber confessed his sins to the pertinent deity: “I should not have placed my hand on him. For doing so, I apologize to both Magglio Ordoñez and the Detroit Tigers.”

I have no idea how the game ended. In actuality the game ended the minute religious crimes were inflicted.

When we last spoke, right before the Yankees series, things were looking up as well. Then a couple of unspeakable seventh innings occured and things looked meh once again. However, over the last ten games, the Tigers are 6-4 and are currently sitting in first place at 17-13. For twenty-six innings against the Indians, the Tigers allowed only ONE solitary run to score. And only three altogether after Fernando’s rough ninth inning. Also, Friday night, this happened:

After Bud Selig sent them to wander the West Coast and the Heartland for 10 days, the Tigers are returning home at long last today. And, for the next three days, the newest entrant in the Remove The Tigers From First So ESPN Can Make Stupid Trade Rumors Regarding Big And Mig Sweepstakes is….THE NEW YORK YANKEES.

That’s right. The greatest team ever. The Yankees. Now, I haven’t watched much baseball outside of the Tigers thus far, but I believe the Yankees and Red Sox have combined to start 35-5 and that tonight’s opposing pitcher, CC Sabathia is 4-0 with a 0.25 ERA and a WHIP of 0.30. Let’s all be very, very afraid and just accept the inevitable sweep.

Oh wait, the Yankees have pretty much the same record as the Tigers and Sabathia has pitched about the same as Verlander at this point in the season. Ok, so CC has a better ERA and has actually won a game, but Verlander has fallen victim to horrendous defense and a ridiculous strand rate in ’09 to date. He’s gotta catch a break at some point, right?

Your match-ups for this series are:

Verlander vs. Sabathia

Jackson vs. Hughes

Porcello vs. Chamberlin

Wednesday night’s game will be broadcast on ESPN, btw. For the first time this year, I’ll get to watch on a screen bigger than that of a MacBook. HUZZAH!

After this series, it’s thirteen straight games against division opponents, including eight of them on the road. These are the good times, people.

Pretty good, right? The Tigers just went 5-4 on a 9 game road trip and played well enough to win at least a couple more of them as well. Best of all, the Fightin’ Tildes are now in possession of a one game lead in the AL Central. Thats the AL Central – FIRST TO 85 WINS IT!

As for the Big Tilde himself, well he’s had some issues at the plate thus far. Not so much with the hitting overall, although the average has taken quite a tumble over the past few days, but for the absolute lack of pop the in bat of TBT. It took until game number 17 for his first extra base hit to occur. Now, we know his slugging percentage took a healthy drop last year, but that had to be expected coming off of his insane 2007 season. Thankfully, as an exclamation point on Saturday’s win, Maggs finally got past first base with the single swing of his bat. We’ve got the first one out of the way, so we’ve got about 35 doubles and 20 more homers that need to start happening know.

The inevitable fire sale has been going on for quite some time, and the centerpiece of all that has been His Tildeness. He was supposed to be traded, like, eight times to seven different teams in the last year, if you believe everything you hear. And if you’re that gullible, when are you going to pay me back that ten bucks?

Anyways, if the Tigers are flat out of the race, you’re going to be haring a lot of teams wanting to claim ownership to our bloggable inspiration. Take it away, James Schmehl! Schmimazehl! Hassenpfeffer Incorporated!

Ordonez is guaranteed $18 million this year and has vesting options for 2010 and 2011. A strong selling point is that he has limited no-trade protection. But unless the Tigers are willing to work with teams to take on part of his contract, I don’t see much trade value.

First of all, MLive, if you’re on a Mac, it’s option+n and then another “n.” Use the tilde and use it well. Secondly, of course teams want him. Who wouldn’t love to trade for a God among men? Rarely can you find a divine force teams are willing to part with.

When all is said and done and baseball is extinct and replaced with a version featuring robots and large-breasted blonde women, there will still be Magglio Ordoñez on the Detroit Tigers, a team that no longer exists. By then his average will be slightly less than it is today, in his prime. I’m going with .326.